BSE plans currency futures launch by November end

Leading bourse BSE plans to launch the currency futures platform, which will utilise new advanced trading technology, by end of November.

The country's oldest stock exchange has received approval from the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to start trading in currency futures.

"We are likely to start currency futures by November end," a senior official from the bourse said.

The launch of current futures platform would also mark the implementation of advanced technology for trading by the exchange.

The new technology is acquired from Germany's Deutsche Borse. It has the potential to increase BSE's trading capacity by at least about five times from present 20,000 orders per second to more than 1,00,000 orders per second, the official said.

According to the official, the technology would be utilised first for currency futures and then gradually would get implemented for other segments.

BSE would be the fourth exchange in the country to launch currency futures. National Stock Exchange (NSE), MCX-SX and United Stock Exchange (USE) are already present in this segment.

At present, rival NSE has the largest share in currency futures market, followed by MCX-SX.

A lucrative segment, current futures market is estimated to be worth tens of thousands of crores of rupees.

Meanwhile, Reserve Bank of India would look at easing restrictions on the forex futures market once stability improves in the foreign exchange market.

RBI is also in talks with Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on making the dollar-rupee OTC and futures market trades possibly on a delivery basis.

Amid global uncertainties, rupee had touched record low of 68.85 against the American dollar on August 28.